


Say You Knew a Man

by Good_Evening



Series: Say You Knew a Man [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Dean Winchester, Alpha Sam Winchester, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bottom Castiel (Supernatural), Bottom Castiel/Top Dean Winchester, Bottom Jimmy Novak, Claiming, Collars, Dark Dean Winchester, Graceless Castiel, Lawyer Sam Winchester, M/M, Omega Castiel, Omega Castiel/Alpha Dean Winchester, Omega Castiel/Alpha Sam Winchester, Rape Aftermath, Stalking, Top Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-14 00:07:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16028858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Good_Evening/pseuds/Good_Evening
Summary: The fact that Dean bothers to stroke his cheekbone after striking it, even if he hasn’t let up his bone-crushing pace, motivates a kind of curiosity within the possessed man that Jimmy perceives with dim horror. The curiosity of the chosen victim, Castiel thinks: certain only of inconsistency.Castiel has hurtled through the vortex for eons, shunted into one incarnation of Jimmy or another at the moment where Dean is closest. The brief quiet of their moments together is always assailed by whatever latest tragedy is meant to overcome their union.In this installment, a graceless Castiel learns that Dean has known Jimmy for over a decade, but Jimmy hardly knows a thing about him.





	Say You Knew a Man

**Author's Note:**

> For the SPN ABO Bingo  
> Square filled: Claim Fuck

1

Although Casiel knows that it’s Dean, Jimmy Novak does not, and so his body doesn’t listen. Although no amount of locks, deadbolts, and chains can defend him from fate, Jimmy Novak has faith, and so Castiel is jerked through his trembling routine, checking and resetting each lock that night, three times exact. Front door, windows, bedroom. The Holy Trinity of OCD.

New York is freezing in the winter. The little month-to-month basement apartment Jimmy most recently moved into lacks heating half the time. Uncomfortable furniture lies in haphazard arrangement, not yet lived in. Given the speed with which he drifts from place to place, Jimmy’s living room-slash-bedroom-slash-study will never achieve a level of familiar comfort. Peeling paint, Goodwill tags partly scraped off.

Nothing in Jimmy’s life tells much about him aside from the fact that he doesn’t plan to stay. He prefers it that way, to neither stick out nor stagnate. Castiel runs his hands along the base of a calendar, stuck on last month, with the third Tuesday ripped to shreds by a box cutter still lying, blade out, on the orange melamine counter. Next to it is a haphazard bundle of money numbering at least $300; enough to live on, but not to move, quite yet. He’s behind, this month. Far behind. He can hardly afford to keep warm, let alone move where it wouldn’t be an issue. His problem is always twelve steps ahead of him, anyway.

He throws himself past the hall closet. Musty, it’s stocked with enough ill-fitting coats to hide his body in sixteen impermeable, scratchy woollen layers.

Scratches, stinging.

The tile is cold and the water, achingly hot. Castiel hisses as he steps into the blistering shower, but Jimmy always scrubs down, on nights like these; the angel just barely remembers having shed his slick and come-stained pants before dragging himself in. He limps because Jimmy limps, because Dean made him limp (but he does not yet  _ know _ that it’s Dean).

Jimmy clutches in his heart that necessary uncertainty; that after nearly a decade, this is still a stranger, that this might be the last. Despite the continuous failure of his practiced defenses, he retains hope, but it’s the hope of a man staring down a tsunami. Castiel feels a residual calm, nonetheless, as Jimmy spiritually rights himself, sings hymns with a voice hoarse from crying.

Is this truly him sharing a vessel, or some form of dissociation exacerbated by trauma? Pill bottles line the kitchen counter: SSRIs, sleeping pills, anxiolytics. Birth control and Plan B, suppressants, scent dampeners, slick suppressors. This is something Jimmy’s run from since college and he still isn’t good at it. At least three thousand dollars of prescriptions lie scattered across the tiny Queens flat and still, Castiel is mesmerized by the swirl of come, pink with blood as it’s pulled down an irresistible drain. Castiel smells Dean and aches because he’s afraid, because their twin longing is as strong as ever, because Jimmy smells Dean and yet he does not  _ know _ that it’s Dean.

2

Sam is a new and coveted constant in Jimmy’s life. He’s a relatively young lawyer with a favorite paralegal, a relationship that his colleagues constantly joke about, often to Jimmy’s face. Today is no different, as Castiel walks into the firm for the first (although technically Jimmy’s 23rd) time.

“Winchester, I never took you to knot before you bite. You seemed so innocent when you walked in here with all that ‘deadbeat dad’ crap.”

Sam’s smile is tight, predatory as he clutches his paper coffee cup. Despite his normal calm and gentility, he’s still an Alpha. An Alpha, Castiel laments with counted breaths, that Jimmy Novak was hoping to date and eventually marry, if Sam could one day see past the filth he thinks clings to him like a dark sheen of oil. Sam is forgiving, patient, owns a Subaru he takes camping once a month, and he never raises his voice in the office. A white-collar, white picket fence personality, as far as Castiel can tell, although he’s sensitive to his own underestimations of Sam. He hardly recognizes him amid memories of blood-drinking, manipulation, and self-sacrifice.

“You ever see a bitch in a collar past twenty?”

“A thirty year-old virgin’s gotta be twice as tight, right?”

“Then Novak’s got the tightest ass in the city,” Azazel, a senior lawyer, gives Jimmy’s rump an aggressive squeeze, fingers creeping partway into the cleft. Castiel jumps because Jimmy jumps, cheeks burning bright with humiliation, disgust, and an annoying pang of fear. Sam swoops in, white-collar-white-knight, to cover him. The lurch of awe and affection that violates Castiel’s heart leaves him half-pining after the youngest Winchester, half-repulsed by Jimmy’s surge of emotion in mixed company.

“I’m alright Sam,” he hears himself murmur, voice low and lilting, unlike how Jimmy talks to anyone else, “really, let’s just head to your office.”

Sam follows with a hand splayed protectively across Jimmy’s lower back, prompting sneers from the senior lawyers. Castiel pretends that it’s the prickle of suppressed heat sweat that causes his spine to tingle and flex. He touches his nape, feels Sam’s gentle smile warm his face. Cold reality jars Castiel back into control when he feels the slick pad Jimmy affixed that morning dampen and slide against his sensitive genitals. Goosebumps dash up his spine to the back of his neck before he can set down his files and begin.

3

Castiel wakes up, feverish, in a subway tunnel to the smell of slick and Alpha musk. His body burns, twists with the last vestiges of Jimmy’s struggle before he relents. He allows Dean to sink fully into him like he’d only dare dream, breaths hitching from sobs-turned-gasps of pleasure as Dean’s knot steadily engorges, teases the glans just within his slick rim without catching in full.

“Christ, you’ve never been this into it,” he growls, yanking at Castiel’s hair and tugging his back into an arch. Sighs fall from kiss-stained lips, numb with Alpha venom as Dean leans in close, panting hot in his ear, “Wanna knot you,  _ fuck _ , wanna knot you so bad, breed you up--” his thrusts lose their practiced edge, instead jab at Castiel’s prostate until he screams, prompting Dean to slam their lips together as he comes into the condom. Castiel moans deeply, head swimming with the mix of their pheromones, scent perfect and deep, smooth and sweet over the subway reek of dank and piss. It doesn’t match the fear or heart-sinking shock that creep leaden into Jimmy’s limbs.

Dean slides out, careful to keep the knot-suppressing condom, laughing at Cas’ whimper as his legs fall shut. He stands, folds the condom in a handkerchief and stuffs it in his pocket. He pauses, takes in Cas, tied up and slipping further into shock, breathing fast and shallow. The angel blinks through Jimmy’s tears at the mysterious silhouette of his lifelong stalker, twin minds locked in a circle of agony and ecstasy, knowing full well that this man is their destiny in every sense.

“Sweetheart,” Dean begins, licking his lips with a light moan that causes Castiel to moan back, legs shaking, “You’re the only one for me.” He pauses, fixes up Jimmy’s suit, brushing his fingers over his swollen entrance and delighting in Castiel’s aborted thrust into his hand. Dean is a strange mix of grace and instinct; he appears to have no qualms letting his aggression direct his actions, but he takes care of Jimmy afterward. Perhaps another method of possession, Castiel wonders dryly despite his wet cheeks--to dress his prey like a doll.

Dean's lips brush sweet-smelling kisses over Castiel’s eyelids, tongue darting out to taste the confusing cocktail of hormones in Jimmy-Castiel’s tears, “Just like you were made for me, I’m here for you.” Pulling back, he rocks on his heels and shoots up, adjusting himself. His hand comes to rest on the door to the tiny janitor’s closet, “And if you try to fuck that lawyer friend, I’ll find you twice as fast.”

Jimmy’s heart stutters with fear, distress at having to look for yet another job, yet another apartment, but already, Castiel’s longing and arousal cause more slick to leak. With no other options, he leans his neck against the janitor’s desk, pressing the emergency button on his collar to call 911.

Early the next morning, donning bandages and gulping down enough scent suppressors to give him a fever, he rips his calendar off the wall and burns it in his stainless steel sink.

4

Of course Castiel knows this is torture for Jimmy, the never-knowing, the constant-knowing, the way Dean seems to play with his life with no end in sight. Castiel could spot his motivations a mile away. It comes after a dinner party, when Sam drops him off at Jimmy’s apartment, cheeks flushed with a case won and a case of wine. When they fall against the front door giggling, Sam extricating himself for propriety, Jimmy pulls him back into a sloppy, unpracticed kiss, mewling as the Alpha momentarily gives in. By the time Jimmy’s eyesight focuses, his wrists are pinned and Sam’s eyes are tinted red with the increase in blood pressure, the familiar scent of Alpha arousal thick in the air as Jimmy moans and babbles about coming inside.

“Please, Sam,” he pants in his ear, “I need you.” The phrase is like a slap to Castiel’s shared face, and as Sam shakily inhales his mixed arousal, he gasps, grinding Jimmy into the door. He scents him. Burrows his head deep into the crux of Jimmy’s neck and shoulder, mouth pausing nipping kisses as Jimmy humps his thigh and moans.

Sam draws back so fast, Jimmy nearly impales himself on the cast iron grate, trying to stop from falling. The Alpha’s eyes widen in fear as he wipes his mouth, apologizes, and runs back up the stairs. Jimmy is left panting, confused in his heat and suddenly fearful of being left alone. It was the kiss, the kiss, it wasn’t good enough. He scratches at his lips. Chokes. The one who’s kissed him most is Dean ( _ not _ Dean: The Stalker) and that is what what he knows to do. Castiel scrabbles at the locks with Jimmy’s numb fingers and struggles to get himself inside, slamming the door and resetting everything.

Hormones rage. He’s crying because Jimmy’s crying, he tells himself, shaking out one pill, two: three from that bottle, one from this. He downs them all and slams his wrists against the edge of the counter a few times, a few more, lashing the rope burn and faded yellow bruises with black and blue of his own design. His cramps are painful, if not debilitating. They double him over as he slumps against the bathroom door on his way to bed, nose twitching on overdrive, screaming  _ Alpha _ , screaming  _ Dean _ as his legs shake and his abdomen thrums with heat and tension. Jimmy was banking on Sam,  _ Sam _ , to lose control at the mere scent of his heat and fuck him. Like he’s somehow as lowly a beast as Jimmy’s come to expect of the alphas in his life. Not that he’s any better, one who can come whether he wants to or would rather claw his eyes out.

When he crawls into bed, Castiel tries to masturbate to relieve the awful pressure, but Jimmy’s a good, faithful Christian boy. He doesn’t own toys. He has at least five alarms and takes his prescriptions on time; what went wrong, Castiel can’t know, and so the angel-turned-human whines out Dean’s name muffled into the pillow like a shameful prayer, fingers struggling with his pants as the door creaks.

“Well,” his stalker smirks, peering into the room from the closet, “I was expecting sloppy seconds, but thank god for gentlemen, right?”

Castiel closes his eyes, tears streaming. He forces Jimmy’s limbs to lie still as Dean’s knee dips the bed, arms bracket his head. He sniffs behind the Omega’s ear and a deep purr thunders through his body, through Castiel. When Dean closes in on him, he starts shaking.

“You know, lately, your scent’s changed. Different cocktail, this time?” he knocks a prescription off the end table, takes Castiel’s chin in his fingers, turning the pale face until Jimmy’s frightened eyes land on his and melt swiftly into Castiel’s yearning. “I been asking myself, ‘Since when was he such a whore?’ but that’s not the whole story, is it? You’re not a whore, Jimmy,”

“Not Jimmy,” Castiel grinds out between his teeth as Dean clamps harder. He smells motor oil, grease, but nothing else past the Alpha’s scent blockers and he whines. Dean must work in a garage. Green eyes sparkle with humor, curiosity as the stalker leans back, sheds his jacket and starts to work on his belt. Castiel’s legs squirm in waiting with fists clenched white in the cheap blue sheets,

“What should I call you, if you’re not Jimmy?”

“Casti--Cas.”

Dean lifts a brow, uses his Alpha voice,

“ **Cas** ,  **take off your clothes** .”

Although he’s terrified, it’s the first time in this dimension that someone’s called his name and his body surges with the need to connect. Castiel gulps, eyes falling shut at the command, the way his attraction to Dean and Jimmy’s fear of him both compel him to obey. He hates the way his fingers quiver, slow and heavy, hates how he has to force down sobs and Jimmy's breath hitching fearfully in their shared chest.

He hates searching for the black that should flash across Dean’s eyes, his inability to see the demonic possession that must have turned the Righteous Man into a rapist, and he hates that he knows (because Jimmy knows) that Dean’s switchblade is at the ready, snug in his jeans’ pocket, next to the condoms. And he hates the suspicion that Dean’s done this enough times to know how to get away with it, wonders if he’s raped more innocents, or if Jimmy’s just unlucky. Jimmy believes Dean has dozens of victims. From the way Castiel has watched their fates entwine, he convinces himself Dean only has it out for him.

“Fingers,” Dean murmurs, watching the last of Jimmy’s rumpled suit fall to the side, “Touch yourself.”

Somehow, Castiel knows this is out of the ordinary. He’s woken with enough rope burn, been duct-taped to radiators and jolted from concussions, to know that Dean’s behavior is changing. When he opens his legs, lips white and red from chewing, he doesn’t miss the way the Alpha scents the air, how the whites of his eyes slowly bleed red until Castiel wants to kiss them and join their colors. He’s not normally this sentimental. It's been a long time since Dean’s stared at him as if he were the only other man on Earth.

Slick, oversensitive, he hisses as he trails fingers over his passage, teasing the rim before plunging in on a gasp. It is so _ easy _ , it’s like Jimmy has found one way or another to fuck himself open since he was ten years old _.  _ Castiel grits his teeth in focus. He can’t bother to imagine that dim past, now that Jimmy’s already sobbing inside; he can hear him wailing, begging release and escape when he’s locked into motions Dean never yet had him fall to. Castiel no longer has the power to put him back to sleep. He almost reaches out to provide comfort, an explanation, anything, but it’s like talking to a two-way mirror. Castiel sees Dean and feels heat crawl through Jimmy’s terror, and Jimmy sobs because he doesn’t understand, because something must be wrong with him.

Castiel closes his eyes, thrusting deep and tilting his head back, exposing his collared neck. When he opens them, Dean is staring directly at him, eyes shining green, ringed with the red of a Crossroads Demon, stroking himself and skidding his loose fist over a growing knot, already flushed and tight. Embarrassing moans leave Jimmy's mouth as his legs fall to the mattress.

“Goddamn, Ji-- _ Cas _ , you smell so good,” Dean sprawls on top of him, shoving his knees apart and yanking his hips up into his lap. Castiel inhales Alpha musk, whimpers when teeth graze his shoulder and burning cock brushes against his entrance. “Like the ocean, like lightning,” Dean presses in with a broken moan and Castiel cries out, clutching his shoulders as the man rocks into him, raw. His breaths are erratic, heaving. He focuses on pleasure rather than on Jimmy fighting it because for once, it isn’t just taken from him, and that further sickens his unwilling host. Jimmy meets Dean’s thrusts because Castiel does. Castiel feels tears and gooseflesh because Jimmy does, because Dean makes a point to lick his closed, white lips as he settles in, numbing him with venom and heat, strokes soothing hands over his thighs and belly as he accommodates an Alpha cock. Instincts to comfort a mate that have thus far evaded the stalker.

Cas mewls, a few fingers scratching at his collar. His neck burns. His hole burns, and the pressure of Dean splitting him open is barely enough to quell the sensation. Dean kisses his cheek, rocks in deep; he lazily pumps the Omega cock, a barely-glorified clitoris, and the second most tender part on Castiel’s body. The reaction is instantaneous. Castiel screams and Dean backhands him sharply--so fast, the collar nicks his neck and the scent of blood in heat hangs sultry in the air.

The fact that Dean bothers to stroke his cheekbone after striking it, even if he hasn’t let up his bone-crushing pace, motivates a kind of curiosity within the possessed man that Jimmy perceives with dim horror. The curiosity of the chosen victim, Castiel thinks: certain only of inconsistency.

Dean pistons into him, gaze boring deep into Castiel’s blues with a mixture of desire and unease. Stretching his limbs far and wide, opening freely for Dean, in no way does he resemble the usual terrified victim, moaning and grunting in his deep, rough voice, tugging at his collar still, chest flushed pink and thighs scraped red by Dean’s nails. If Dean were honest with himself, he might admit that, between Jimmy and now “Cas,” masculinity attracts him. Once every few minutes, he swears he hears his name on those pretty, plush lips. It’s impossible, he’s been too careful, but the sound drags heavy on his skin. His teeth ache, his temples pulse.

Castiel writhes and moans so loud, the neighbors can hear. Neighbors who only know three goddamn things about him since Jimmy never speaks to anyone without being spoken to.

One, he’s visibly, almost annoyingly devout, as evidenced by the cross and purity symbol on his collar, worn smooth with a quarter-century of anxious rubbing. Two, he’s a goddamn liar about his chaste spinsterhood, since his apartment (and his body) smell overwhelmingly of an incredibly virile, unmated Alpha. Three, Castiel thinks haltingly, mind burning as Dean’s cock strokes lazily against his prostate, the Alpha catching his breath and swearing under it--three, they know Jimmy is a rape victim.

Hell, the guys at the office know it. Most Omegas aren’t naturally that submissive, that afraid, that fucking deferential. Almost childlike, the way Jimmy locks himself up and yet relies on any do-gooder Alpha like  _ this one’s different _ . Jimmy had felt Sam’s erection, the beginnings of his sizeable knot hot on his thigh when they kissed. If Castiel allowed more than a few seconds’ consideration to Jimmy’s life before his invasion of it, the utter pity might have driven him to be prudent and pick the Winchester less likely to abuse him. Instead, all he can smell is  _ Dean _ , who doesn't belong in this world, whose scent, leaking out in his sweat, reminds him of driving past sunflower fields in the Dakotas, of the sun’s warmth on asphalt and leather seats; Dean smells like  _ home _ , and Castiel sobs as he gouges red trails down Dean’s muscular back, twines his legs tighter around his hips as Dean loses himself thrusting, his knot catches and Castiel screams.

Somewhere in there, he whimpers for Dean to bite him. Jimmy’s heart and instincts have torn him: the perfect matching of their scents conflicting with over a decade of fear, revulsion, and rage. In the end, Dean’s teeth bite down everywhere but the metal of the collar. Biting hard enough to tear the skin when he finally comes, hips jackhammering against Castiel’s pale thighs so his shout when they come together is punctuated with breathless silence. Bruises and red tooth marks shimmer under the glaze of sweat across Castiel’s collarbone. Dean growls at the sight, gasps when his hips pulse forward on instinct. Castiel moans as another round of Dean’s come pumps into him, clenching down on his knot, riding his own orgasm another ten seconds before the Alpha collapses again.

Castiel quiets his breathing, heavy under the weight of Dean’s head. Dean whines at the fingers pulling gently through his hair, rutting again into Castiel’s passage, another orgasm that Castiel greets with his own shuddering breaths.

Dean stalls. The upstairs neighbor shuffles around in her kitchen. Castiel jolts when a hand clamps over his mouth, his body’s struggle renewed by Jimmy’s revived fear. His thighs flex around the stalker’s hips, reflexively pulling him inward when Dean thrusts again and releases inside him with a stifled moan. It takes seconds for bliss to clear from green eyes, now sparking with threatened power. Castiel swallows a sob as his hair is jerked to the side, Dean tugging at their connection. Pained grunts fill the room. The two gasp when Dean’s knot pulls free with a loud pop, come gushing out of Castiel’s red entrance instead of collecting inside as Dean’s unfinished knot demanded. Semen pools and cools rapidly on the bed beneath him. Dean never comes inside. The sensation of a botched knotting leaves the Omega agitated, already fingering at the mess between his legs, instincts confused by the lack of a bonding and the itch around his rim where the knot stretched him achingly wide.

Above him, Dean jerks on his shirt, jacket, swinging out his knife to hold it, stiff against Castiel’s gut

“You may be a catch, but I’m not exactly ready for fatherhood,” his smile is somehow charming, cocky. Jimmy practically screams that he’s psychotic, but it’s the first flash of  _ his _ Dean that Castiel’s seen in a lifetime. “Up ya go,” he pulls at Castiel’s claw-marked arm, marveling at his own Alpha talons in comparison to the red strokes. Castiel rolls his eyes and marches to the bathroom, legs shaking, Jimmy’s head bowed low in frightened submission.

They stumble to the shower, and Dean forces him to spread his legs as he commands he brace himself on the cold tile. He pulls an Omega contraception device from his jacket: a womb-stimulator coated in spermicide that massages Castiel’s prostate, his muscles, and the glans touched only by a firm, full knot. The resulting scream from overstimulation sends Dean into panic mode. He slams Castiel’s head against the shower wall, pausing after to rake a curious gaze over a face paralyzed by pleasure. Castiel shivers; Jimmy pleads brokenly for him to stop. Shaped to fit Omega vaginas exactly, the tool makes him almost painfully aware of his own anatomy--and Dean’s carnal knowledge of it. The effect on Dean is just as visible. Tightly drawn, his lips slink into a confident smirk, eyebrow raised as Castiel’s outburst,

“Doesn’t take much to change your mind, does it? Don’t worry,” now he unhooks the shower head, setting the water to a scalding temperature, “We’ll have plenty of chances.”

5

Other Alphas notice. It’s something Jimmy’s fought for nearly two decades: the cloying scent of Dean and sex on his clothes, his skin, his breath. Despite having gotten used to it he’s still threatened by it, disgusted. Castiel notes that Jimmy tends to abuse his wrists more when the scent is strongest, on nights after Dean’s left him in whatever state of decency he deemed appropriate for the venue of his attack.

Normally, he dresses him. Affixes his special locking belt, (which Dean continually picks open) brushes his hair out of his face, checks his collar. As if he weren’t a serial rapist, Dean plays at caring for Jimmy. By the time Jimmy is infused with Castiel, his body is already accustomed to the false gestures, already anticipates the soft lips against his turned cheek when Dean says goodbye, Alpha venom searing a scent mark into his bare flesh. To Castiel, this tenderness is utterly new. He knows violence shouldn’t beget romance. He knows something is  _ fundamentally wrong _ with this version of Dean, but it’s still Dean.

At work, other Alphas have always goaded him to reveal the identity of his aggressive lover, but Jimmy always played it off with no small sense of horror as a family member trying to mark without marking to ward off troublesome Alphas. It worked in Chattanooga. It worked in Des Moines, in Eugene, Seattle, Dallas: not so much in Spokane, Sioux Falls, or a seedy neighborhood outside Atlanta where a cop had stopped him for walking alone, and when he’d seen the collar, tried to coerce him into the back of his car. Jimmy ran faster that night than he’d ever dared, having known for a year by that point that Dean would always chase him down. He’d escaped. It was his first win since before Dean sauntered into his life.

Today, Sam seems to avoid him, and Castiel feels with no small annoyance each sigh, shrug, and sniff that Jimmy releases upon rejection. Usually, they eat lunch together. Usually, Sam walks him past the senior lawyers when they’re about. Today, Azazel flicks his tongue over his lips and bets him $1000 he can put him into heat with it.

Jimmy is the type to duck by, fed up with and cautious of Alphas, but Castiel is so disgusted by this reality he can’t keep his mouth shut,

“If you have time for fruitless pursuits of the flesh, you have time to assist Mr. Winchester with the Milton case, which you are leading, correct?” Azazel stands, halfway between a smirk and a sneer. Castiel holds his ground as the Alpha stalks closer, “Pardon, I sometimes forget. Memory requires consistency to cement itself.”

“You wanna go toe-to-toe with me, cutie?” Although near him in height, Azazel’s presence is towering, simultaneously repulsive and commanding. Jimmy’s lips pale, he hugs his books tighter but Castiel’s will blazes behind his eyes,

“I think you should not waste your time on subordinates when the firm is so clearly in need of your skills.” Dean had once told him he was getting more sarcastic.

Azazel’s hand locks over his shoulder and he leans in, sniffing, sensing the strange mix of Jimmy’s anxiety and Castiel’s indomitability. His leer grows, “Are you ever gonna mate that Alpha?” he breathes in Jimmy’s shudder, hand lightly massaging the tensed shoulder. He steps into Castiel’s space and his scent is overpowering: iron on coals, pungent with his bruised ego and the smell of burning hair. Normally in this position, Jimmy would find any excuse to escape, slowly walk away, and lock himself in the Omega bathroom down the hall for twenty or so minutes, enough to wash up after crying into his fist on the toilet. But nothing in this back-asswards universe shakes Castiel unless it revolves around Dean.

His hand slides over Azazel’s, a sweet smile plastered on his face as the Alpha purrs lowly, a sound he muffles with his throat closing on a swallow. Castiel tips forward just a bit, pretending to swoon, and just as Azazel’s eyes spark with conquer and lust, he pinches a nerve on the Alpha’s hand, forcing him back and raising a brow at the pained shout.

Other paralegals glance over, oohing and awing over Jimmy Novak, walking panic attack, and the first time he’s ever stood his ground. Azazel tries to clutch his aching hand in a fist and snarls when it twinges, partially limp. Burning eyes rake over the smug tilt to Castiel’s lips and the angel would have preened if he still had his wings.

“If you truly can’t work today, perhaps you should rest at home. This firm values your health very highly; we can't have you pushing it when you’re so clearly affected.”

“Jimmy, can I borrow you for a minute?” Sam’s hulking Alpha presence, heavy with tension, quiets the nearby gossips. They casually resume working and Azazel is about to turn his temper on Sam but thinks better of it, smiles sweetly at him and pats his shoulder like a father, proud of his son,

“Don’t disappoint me, sport. You’ve got a hell of a lot of pull.” He leans close as he passes, speaking just loud enough for Jimmy to catch his words, “He looks up to you, after all. You know how much fun you have with that.”

As Castiel follows Sam to his office, he pales considerably. Deep inside, Jimmy’s stomach is doing barrel rolls at the very thought of Sam doing to him what Dean does; what Azazel would gladly do. It strikes both of them in a moment, at the clasp of Sam’s lock, the fall of the shutters, that Jimmy is very much outclassed, cornered, and alone. He hasn’t had friends since college, since he’d first met Dean on that highway in the dark--

“Are you with me?”

Jimmy blinks. Castiel flexes his fingers and breaks eye contact from Sam’s friendly concern,

“... I apologize for my…” he fumbles with his words; neither sincerity nor understanding of any fault make way into his apology. Jimmy simply does this out of habit. Begging forgiveness for his need to occupy two square meters on this Earth, as if belonging, being human, does not naturally allow the space in which to be, and Castiel could share some of the finer points of Kant on the border of their beings but Sam is looking at him with increasing worry, Alpha scent grating with concern and insecurity as Jimmy digs his nails into his palms, once over, then two, finish three; one streak, two red lines, hangnail pulled, again, he rips, he rips again, he rips again--

“Jimmy,” Sam’s voice is urgent but soft, as though Jimmy matters and it’s all Castiel can do to tilt his head back and let the tears well there on the hope that he’ll dry out.

Hands fold over his, gently parting his clenched claws, Omega nails small but sharp. He strokes the tendons without a word, providing a level of comfort Jimmy hasn’t experienced in twenty years. Castiel cusses under his breath as tears break free, sinuses alight with decades of suppressed crying. Sam’s alarm blooms,

“Are you hurt? Did that ass--did Azazel  _ do anything? _ ” Castiel can read between the lines, between his bouts of sniffling and choking.

“No,” he shakes his head, a string of snot springing free and tapering off the bulb of his nose. He’s about to wipe it on his own shirt when Sam strokes his face with a monogrammed handkerchief:  _ DW _ .

The scent blows him back into a chair, Jimmy’s nails raking down his shirt sleeves, knees pulled up in a huddle.

“Wh-where did you find that? Sam?” His eyes are broad with fear, electric blue that pulls Sam closer to him as though he held the marionette strings on this twisted story. Part of Castiel sings with relief at the visible close of the story, but Jimmy spirals, stuck in a loop,

_ He’s everywhere _

_ You’ll never get away _

_ He’ll ruin everything and _

_ You can’t fight _

_ Him, you can’t stop him _

Lips press over his and Jimmy’s breath hitches. Sam’s insistence pries his mouth open, tongue shyly exploring his mouth. Castiel feels every nerve light up on Jimmy’s lips, feels the pulsing flow of Sam’s venom penetrate his defenses, leaving him calmer, pliable, receptive. When Sam pulls back, hands clutching the armrests, a thin trail of venom-laced saliva hangs between them. Jimmy follows it, rising up a few centimeters from the seat, coaxing Sam’s mouth open again as the Alpha grunts, haltingly grasps his slender sides and bends him back for better access. Ardent fingers begin work on Jimmy’s shirt buttons and he squirms in the chair. Neither he nor Castiel can get ahold of themselves; Jimmy’s dreams are coming true and Castiel just barely keeps his head above the rip tide of longing, arousal, and the suspicious scent of Dean on Sam’s clothes.

Jimmy shoves him off in a second, shirt undone to his navel, eyes still crazed and dilated with Sam’s venom.

_ “What was that?” _ he almost hisses. Sam struggles to straighten himself, high off Jimmy’s pheromones, unknowingly delighting in Castiel’s emergent scent.

“Uh,” he blinks, “I’m sorry, I uh,” his cheeks flush and he corrects his suit jacket so hands don’t keep rummaging, “I thought if I, i-in my family, we have pretty potent... venom. And I wanted you to, to have a moment--that is, to calm down but… was I wrong?” innocent eyes cloud red at the edges, narrowed in on Jimmy’s form, the bob of his unshaven throat as he gulps, “Do you not… want this?” he gestures between them.

Castiel cocks his head and Sam’s eyes flicker with with a prickling mix of amusement and unease. His fingers raise in air quotes, “ _ This? _ ”

Mirth and adoration shine from deep in Sam’s eyes. He smiles nervously, lips still pleasantly swollen from kissing, scratching the back of his head so his hair flies loose over his shoulders. Castiel can’t ignore the somersaults shaking his belly with Jimmy’s suppressed anxiety and desire. Suddenly he feels stupid for blushing, for looking away, for failing to move or speak as Sam slowly approaches him again. A hand brushes his hair over his ear and Jimmy leans into the touch with a high-pitched sigh. Sam stares at him in wonder, clearly leaning in for another kiss.

Castiel clears his throat and the lawyer backs away on the pretense of getting water. He glances at the dark window, New York at night despite not having yet reach 5pm. He wants to water his houseplants, stop by a burger joint and pound a beer like the answer to his jumble of feelings is 6% ABV.

The thought leaves his mouth unbidden, “Do you want to get dinner together?”

Jimmy knows it’s a date. Sam knows. Only Castiel struggles with the younger Winchester cast in that particular role. The room seems to spark, Sam reacting like a puppy at Christmas, scent effusing his office with warm caramel, toasted almonds, and poppy seeds. Sam smells like a walking bakery and it's no wonder that Jimmy, with his sweet tooth, is so desperately in love with him that his teeth ache. Castiel casts a despairing thought toward the state of his love for Dean, burning hot as torture, and wonders whether Jimmy’s passions are immediate or if he’s caught on and considered all entailed in mating Sam. The Winchesters don’t come in a single pack.

Sam beams at him, all uncomplicated love and bright futures, “Yeah. Yeah, Jimmy, I’d love that. Like that,” he pauses, retrying his phrasing, “I would like to go out with you.”

If the sour pitch to Castiel’s stomach isn’t enough, now he’s trapped in the middle of their heart-eyed staring contest--an astral snag in the meeting of souls. Sam offers his hand, gently lifts Jimmy from his massive armchair. Their chests brush not at all on accident when Jimmy swivels on his feet. He’s preparing for another kiss, heart thumping wildly as Sam leans down onto his wavelength, when Castiel breathes low and sultry on his lips,

“I’ll tell you a secret,” he murmurs. Sam’s eyes shine, lips tilting with childish humor. “My closest friends call me by my other name.”

“Other name?” Sam smiles, “What other name, ‘Clarence’?”

The old moniker strikes like an arrow, spearing a leftover complex named ‘Meg’.

“ **Castiel** .” The angel says it reverentially, as if speaking of a friend long since passed, “They called me Castiel.”

The air hangs damp between their mouths, grinning red with intoxicating fun. “Castiel.” Sam murmurs, and the angel almost feels a tug of Grace at hearing his name bastardized as it always was on Sam’s magnetic lips. Jimmy kisses him deeply, Castiel working his tongue in patterns Dean had taught him in one millennium or another.

Sam is dazed when he’s let go, clearly struggling to restrain himself, “Do you mind if I call you Cas?”

And there it is. The collar burns against Jimmy’s itching neck, the rattle of suppressant pills loud in his pocket. Sensation washes over them both as Castiel feels something shift, feels his first shot at  _ being himself _ . His smile is conservative, muted more than the old smirks he’d flash Dean, hopping into the Impala, together. Sam’s eyes flare with lust.

Cas steps out of their shared space to the forefront of the vessel’s control, feeling almost fully powered for the first time in eons.

“I’ll get my coat. Do you know a good place?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam blathers, coughing to cover his heaving breaths, pining after Cas’ newly-emerged scent, “Kind of a hole-in-the-wall. My brother introduced me--he loves it.”

The angel grins, “That sounds lovely.”

6

“You like red meat, right?”

Castiel nods his head politely but Jimmy’s excitement shakes his skull and Sam laughs, light and loving. Warmth stirs inside him and his appetite grows as he inhales the twin scents of Sam’s walking bakery and that of frying burgers, a mix of hungers Cas hasn’t felt since Dean and he had chased Famine and staked out in Baby for five hours. His heart cringes at the memory; all Jimmy can sense is a fantasy about his rapist, too confusing to unpack.

He shivers, pulls his coat higher over his freezing metal collar. Jimmy can never afford the winter version; by this time of the year, Dean’s usually found him a dozen times over. Neither does he wear scarves, having vivid knowledge of what Dean delights in doing with them.

In substitution, a bundle of coats surround him like a fortress, nevertheless leaving him freezing on New York’s frigid streets, Castiel’s favorite tawny trench the finishing layer.

Still a creature of undeniable faith, it is no surprise to Castiel, when Sam opens the door to the burger joint for him, to find Dean holed up in the corner, nursing a beer, a double bacon, and the deep, red gouges Jimmy had left on his hands when he last tried to choke him out. The Alpha is on immediate alert, eyes locked on Castiel’s for a hot second before Sam intervenes,

“Dean, you’re back in town! Excellent…” he tries not to voice his annoyance at the interruption. Dean waves him off, only looking at Cas when Sam glances up at the menu, his expression dark with warning. Despite Jimmy’s trembling, Castiel holds eye contact, lips pale in their pursed frown. In seeking an Alpha presence to soothe him, Jimmy grabs hold of Sam’s arm, blushing when his friend automatically twines their fingers, stroking him until his scent has calmed from a tempest to an autumnal cool.

Rolling through the restaurant like thunder, a deep, possessive growl emits from the corner, frightening a Beta in a booth down the aisle so that she spills her water on a waitress. Sam scowls at his brother, tightens his hold on Jimmy, then slides his arm protectively across the small of his back,

“This is Jimmy. He’s a paralegal at my firm. Just moved here last month and we’re…” his voice lowers, “kind of in the middle of something.”

Dean huffs, flicks his coffee spoon with a loud clatter, scent multiplying in the stifling restaurant. Castiel inhales deeply the tones of his distress: jealousy, indignation, possessiveness.

“Join me,” he cracks his palm down on the sticky leather seat, again making the Beta jump, “I think I know exactly what  **Jimmy** would like.” Dean licks his lips and Sam sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Castiel’s instincts swirl with the conflicting needs to escape and to slink from Sam’s arm to Dean’s side, to reassure the longest Alpha constant in his life. Omegas only respond with such care to Alphas close within their inner circles. If Castiel is not mistaken, Jimmy’s instincts would have him rushing to Dean to placate his chosen Alpha, offer his hand or neck or another pulse point strong with his scent. Burning red, his neck itches furiously under the collar. Dean’s pheromones are too potent to ignore; he wonders if they've formed a scent bond after all this time or if Jimmy is simply too scared of the emotions frying his brain in the tiny room. Every other scent, excluding Sam’s, suddenly smells hideous.

Smug triumph darkens Dean’s face when Jimmy pulls off Sam as though whipped, his stomach flipping, and Cas doubles over with a shuddering breath. Sam is immediately there, alarmed by the change in his pheromones. The waitress, the cook, even the Beta woman idle with eyes locked on him, attracted to the tones of Omega distress.

“Cas?” Sam whispers, not quiet enough that Dean doesn’t balk at his brother’s intimacy, “are you okay? Do you need me to take you home?”

“ _ Please! _ ” Jimmy forces out past Castiel’s defenses. The angel is blindsided by his sudden outburst and quickly clamps down, scrubbing the tears from his cheeks, “I need a… a medication. Forgot...” Sam’s worry increases and Cas curses his fib, “Scents. There are too...”

Sam’s empathy is legendary. He closes a warm arm over Castiel’s shoulder and leans in close, ignoring Dean’s pinched expression as he whispers, “I can get to your apartment and back in thirty minutes. Can you walk?” Jimmy’s legs shake. Castiel purses his lips and clutches the counter edge. “Then here,”

Castiel is deposited by the table, next to the Alpha of his nightmares, Jimmy hyperventilating as Dean eyes him. A vortex of warring instincts drive him to stand, to intimidate, but more to usher nosy Betas away. He tosses a possessive arm around the Omega and falls back into the seat, pulling him into the corner where the lights are lower. From the other side of Jimmy’s crying episode, he talks over his head to his brother,

“It looks like a panic attack, if he has any anxiolytics--”

“ _ I know,  _ Dean, I’m not some--”

“Not. Finished.” Dean curls his fingers possessively in Castiel’s hair and the Omega leans into him, controlling Jimmy, controlling his breaths, “If he has scent suppressors, grab ‘em by the truckload,”

“ _ No _ ,” Cas tries, basking in the sudden safety he feels in Dean’s grasp, Jimmy subdued, “Took too many, no,” he shakes his head and Sam hisses, passing a worried palm gently over his cheek that Cas permits because Jimmy’s fears are calmed by the other brother’s touch.

“Okay… do you remember how much?”

“A week.”

“You’ve been taking too much for a week?”

Cas gulps, voice low, “No,” he replies levelly, “A weeks’ worth, today.” The boys’ mouths drop. Dean’s eyes narrow, calculating, as Sam interrupts,

“We need to go to the ER.” He tugs on Jimmy’s limp arm but Dean clutches him fiercely, hissing,

“There’s no need. Shit,” their whispering has attracted a small crowd of curious customers, scenting Castiel and the distress of two Alphas in wait of a battle for dominance over a suspiciously old Omega. Dean bares his teeth and growls, followed by recognition in Sam’s eyes and the flash of his fangs when he stares down an Alpha in a brown suit.

“We need to get him water, we need to keep him out of sunlight,” Sam meets his halfway fixes with a half-shout,

“He’s not a fucking fungus, Dean, he needs an ambulance!”

“Sammy,” Dean pulls his brother toward him and, hovering over Castiel’s crumpled, shuddering body, kisses him deeply, tongue lapping at his mouth, venom thick in the air. Sam moans and relaxes while Cas freezes,  _ That’s unexpected _ , and Sam retracts with a low whine, shudders in regaining his cool,

“Okay,” he breathes, eyes closed before he focuses them on Dean’s cautious smile, “what do we do?”

The diner quiets as Dean sends him away with a list of home remedies. The three of them bumble out to the sidewalk, Castiel’s body hidden behind the barricade of two seemingly battle-ready Alphas. Choking the street with pheromones, the sidewalk clears as though Cas has the plague, onlookers hurriedly ducking their heads while the Alphas manage to walk him to a small park and set him gently own--a brother on each arm--such that, excepting their respective attraction to him, Cas can hardly remember which timeline this is. Satisfied with his relative safety, and the clutch Dean has on his trench coat, Sam’s fists burrow deep in his pockets. A natural pacifist, no one should see his talons, elongated: only the pinch to his nose from the itch of their emergence. Although Sam suppresses his instincts well, it remains true that a Winchester doesn’t know how to function without a fight.

As Sam disappears into a subway tunnel, Dean’s arm curls around Castiel’s back, tucking his fingers under the folds of Jimmy’s battery of coats. Shivers of fear make him snarl,

“You know I can’t do anything as long as Sam’s waiting on us, y’know?”

Cas measures his words, allowing his shoulder to relax under the stalker’s warmth,

“So he’s your brother,”

“Yeah.”

Curt.

Minutes pass. Cars honk; an elderly woman squabbles with some squirrels who’ve made their way into her grocery bag; pigeons descend on the freshly-spilled goods. Dean’s chest vibrates. Cas registers it as a laugh and tracks the change in the whirlwind of scents suffocating his senses. Still, Dean’s eludes him.

“I can’t quite see the resemblance,” Dean’s shoulders rustle under his jacket, rolling, permitting Castiel to partly lie on his torso. He sniffs, coughs into his hand,

“Made sure he got enough to eat. He didn’t have to… he liked school.”

“Not raping, then,” Cas delivers flatly. The first pinpricks of talons close on his nape and his entire body stills,

“Sam is too good for this world, for that firm, and for sluts like  _ you _ .”

Dean’s growl rattles down into his lungs and quickens his breath. He bares his neck but the gesture does nothing to ease the Alpha’s grip on his tendons.

“But I’m not too good for you, am I?” he licks his lip and bites it, Dean side-eyeing him, “Dean Winchester. Older brother to Sam Winchester,”

“Stop it.”

“Driver of a black,  _ ngh _ \--” a fist tightens in his hair,

“Shut. Up.”

“1967 Chevrolet Impala, license pla-- _ ah! _ number CNK-80Q3.”

Green eyes shift at the edges to a virile red, and Cas feels poor Jimmy’s heart bottom out. He privately prays for Sam’s return.

“Listen to me, you little--”

“Yours.” His rage is mastered by the declaration, “Dean, I am irrevocably, unquestionably yours.”

Cas can tell the words are landing: Dean can’t take his eyes off him, face streaked with possession, arrogance, and unease. “But,” he supplies, the hand in his hair loosening, “I am also  **Sam’s** . So, enlighten me, Dean,” his lips brush the man’s ear, hand resting on his arm, “Will you continue to attack your brother’s lover? How will he respond when--if, sorry--if I tell him  _ any _ of the things you’ve done to me?” he massages Dean’s fist, now trembling, white, “You raised him to be a good man, Dean, a responsible mate. How do you think he’ll respond?”

It kills him to see the flicker of tears in Dean’s eyes, the fury barely tempered by a deep well of fear Castiel was compelled to stir. Jimmy thrilled in the newfound control, and Cas would be remiss if he suppressed the new breed of smile branding his vessel’s lips.

Stoic, hand covering his mouth, Dean leans away from him. Cas nearly sighs at the loss of contact, his mask withering by the second at the sight of his heart, shaking, wrecked by his own tongue.

“What do you want?”

The low rumble of Dean’s voice lights him up, sets a fire in his belly that he’s only recently come to recognize is lust.

“I want you, Dean, I want to live with you and your brother--”

“You can’t,” he breaks in, voice shrinking, “Sam will, he’ll  _ find out _ , you can’t,” he covers his mouth again, fangs aching.

“Dean.” He takes his hands in his own and ignores the quiver in his voice at Dean’s snarl, “I have no interest in taking Sam away from you. I just…” his lips part on a hot breath, eyes stinging, “I want to pretend that none of this ever happened.”

“I…”

A taxi honks. Somewhere, a meth head rattles around in a trash can for the lunch hour. Dean inhales deeply and draws closer to Cas, who flinches by memory. He flicks his tongue out and lays the smallest pearl of venom on Castiel’s lips, pausing to watch him instinctively taste it. The flavor writhes through his defenses, leaves him parched for more and before he knows it, Dean’s pushing him back.

“Cas… what do you taste?”

He licks around his mouth, moaning at the sudden recognition of the scent, of  _ Dean’s _ scent and taste on a vivid overdose of suppressants, mixed with

“Cherries. Leather. Bourbon… vanilla. Dean, you taste…” he moans, shuddering as a small trickle of slick leaks from between his thighs. With no pad he’d have to, (but he wasn’t due for a heat until,)  _ he could not stop touching _ Dean’s hand, kneading it, tilting his head for a kiss that Dean gave freely, pressing him back onto the bench.

“I suppressed my scent every time I went to… see you. I didn’t want you to, to connect it to what I...” Jimmy reels so hard, his rage almost interrupts Dean’s confession, “Not at first. But I had to keep seeing you, and whenever I thought you might want someone else, I had to  **own** you,”

Jimmy balks. Cas attempts to forget.

“You could have just  _ asked _ , Dean, if we’re Tru--”

“No,” Dean cuts him off, “Cas,” he laughs, “when I first met you, you were in college. Beautiful, intelligent, I saw you at that party and… you kept flirting with every other Alpha in that fucking frat.”

“It was a  _ party _ , Dean, I was  _ talking _ to those men,” Cas massages his temples, assaulted on one side by Dean’s violent idiocy, and inside by Jimmy’s screaming at the flood of memories, at the fact that he wasn’t fighting back. As if he’d  _ never fought hard enough _ .

“I was just a kid passing through; my dad had the car that night and I was walking back to the motel and… you were just, there. In the backyard of some douche’s party house. Laughing. Shining. Your body giving off those sexy pheromones,”

Cas’ small, sharp claws clutch down on Dean’s throat so quickly, the stalker actually shuts up. He flexes his fingers, at war with Jimmy over whether to kill this man or attempt to salvage their bond, his soul, and the lust clouding his intentions made it no easier to choose based on reason.

“I could tell those guys were planning something for you: getting you sloshed, taking you out to the trees, in the back… Cas, I wasn’t the one to tie you up,”

“ **Shut it** ,”

“I hung around because I couldn’t let you go. Once they had you surrounded, I took a bottle of vodka and molotov’d their shed. They scattered like rats, I mean,” he chokes on a laugh, manic, “they just  _ left _ you there to die! I couldn’t, I had to… I dragged you into the woods by the highway and…”

Cas doesn’t bother calming his ragged breathing, the pulses of rage and terror setting Jimmy’s soul alight,

“You. Raped me. For ten. Years.”

Dean nods, eyes on his reddened lips, scenting the air and flicking his tongue even with Cas’ nails in his throat. The angel purses his lips, crying through his anger as he lets his hand fall into a fist. He’s tired of the carelessness of his fate, of what brought them together. He needs something to cling to, a version of Dean with no other options but to hear him out. Dean’s confession continues to rattle him like the iron cage of the metro bridge roaring above them.

“I hurt you bad. I marked you up. Ruined you for anybody else.”

Cas shakes his head, “No. No, no, no, you didn’t. Dean, your brother will forgive me for my sins,” Dean flinches. He huffs, moving to another bench and sinking down in grief as Castiel binds him:

“Will he forgive you yours?”


End file.
